mardi 27 novembre 2012

A yesterday town to think the future of cities

Poundbury is a town located on the edge of Dorchester, in the area where suburban usually take place. It counted 5 000 inhabitants in 2007. It has become famous being the town of Prince Charles, where he decided to experiment some urbanistic principles that he's been defending for many years.


As an experimentation town, part of the New Urbanism movement, the Poundbury project follows four lines.

First, Poundbury is said to be built in accordance with its inhabitant rather than the cars. In other words, it's not the ways that set the space up, but actual life. Houses and public buildings are based on traditional designs purposely to fit perfectly the environment and the spirit of that particular place. Then, Poundbury has been built and design according to proximity which define all relations within the city. And to finish, only raw materials extracted from the near territory have been used, so Poundbury organically respects its geographic setting.  All those points make Poundbury an eco-friendly town. 



The Poundbury project has been sorely criticized. But most of the time, critics derive to the lack of both legitimacy and credibility of Prince Charles. Therefore, Poundury is said to be based on old-fashioned ideas not to say outdated principles. 

As a matter of fact, it might be the implementation rather than the global idea that didn't worked out. However the main asset of Poundbury is to drive people to think their city otherwise, and to regard new ways of living urbanity.


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Amélie Blandeau - Week 8 - 256 words

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